Exactly what you were hoping for, give or take.

The Bachelor Abides

As hosts of reality shows go, I just don’t know about Chris Harrison. Never have. It’s not so much that I don’t like him, it’s more that he just doesn’t do much for me. Then again, he quite literally does not do much for anyone that doesn’t resemble the job description of a not overly-capable manservant, for whom his employer feels too sorry to fire. That “This is the last rose of the evening,” ritual of stating the obvious that the show insists upon, week in and week out is an object of scorn. People snicker.

These ‘The So-and-So’s Tell All’ episodes of the Bachelor, are intended as Chris Harrison’s time to shine. This is the one episode per season where he gets to spread his wings, display his understanding and authority as he presides over a room full of also-rans and DSM line-straddlers who may or may not yet have found gainful employment after being publicly rejected by the bland, smiling stranger upon whom they publicly tried to force their affection, and usually he can’t help but look pretty good in comparison.

That’s pretty well how things started out last night, too, until Chris allowed Rozlyn to sit down on the couch opposite him and give him sass. Up until then, it was all fun and games as he urged the people sitting in the futuristic chairs to agree that Michelle was kinda kracked and Vienna’s an immature little thing who’s not the sort that respectable men propose to.

The next thing you know, Rozlyn’s right there, and she’s spoiling for a fight and she doesn’t even care if it’s a fair one, mostly because of the lengths this show, with Chris Harrison as their main mouthpiece, has gone to paint her as a faithless something-or-other who deserved the bum’s rush she got.

In case you’re joining this late and honestly care about a gossipy little incident that didn’t even matter all that much when it happened, which was weeks ago, the charges are, ol’ Roz took up with a producer on the show and had an “inappropriate relationship” with him, right there in the house with the other ladies, while she was supposed to be only falling in love with Jake and nobody else. Did she really? Who the hell knows? Probably. Why should that matter? Well, for one, this isn’t ‘Nam. This is The Bachelor. There are rules.

But there she sat on the couch in a very short dress, with an axe to grind. She was an idiot and she argued like one, and the studio audience full of aspiring housewives wasn’t buying what she was selling for a second, but none of this changed the fact that the host was stiff and had his back up from the start and couldn’t control the interview. She even got off a shot about him making a pass at the mystery producer’s wife, for which Chris had no smackdown retort prepared.

To put it another way, Rozlyn wouldn’t have talked to Jeff Probst that way.